Naruto: Wolf of the Hidden Leaf

It took us some time to find out the details regarding the other bandit group. Reiga sensei was thorough to say the least. And after the long interrogation we let them rest.

Reiga sensei had one of his shadow clones by their side as their guard. We went away from them and took our places inside one of the houses.

It was evaluation time. He had already sent a message to the teams of the other village to meet us here. They'll be here any time, so we needed to finish this up quickly.

After entering the house, he sat on one of the chairs as the three of us and Umbra remained standing.

"I haven't seen you three fighting together so I can't really give any evaluations regarding your teamwork. But I've got some individual pointers." Reiga sensei said as he lit a cigarette. This was the first time I've seen him smoke but judging from the expression of Sayuri and Daigo, it seemed that they were used to it.

"Sayuri and Daigo."

"Yes sensei." Both of them responded eagerly.

"Both of you use your clan's own techniques. And I can't exactly train you in those techniques. But what I can tell you is that you two need to work much harder. The level of skill isn't even close enough for you guys to go beyond the genin threshold. You have the basics down. What you really need is experience. You need to fight in a life or death scenario. Otherwise, you never get the edge that you need."

"It's not our fault sensei." Sayuri said with disdain in her voice. "Our fathers and mothers fought in wars when they were our age. They fought for the village. They were proud shinobis and their lives were filled with glory. But, now look at us. We've been finding missing cats, escorting simple merchants and doing all sort of odd jobs since we became genin. This was our first fight after almost three whole months and what do we get? Bandits who don't even know how to use chakra. How can we even improve if we don't even have a real fight?"

I could see the fire in her light lavender eyes. It seems that behind that seemingly easygoing girl, there is a fierce shinobi hidden inside. A shinobi who wants to improve herself.

I didn't know whether Reiga saw it or not, but he did not show it. He took another puff as he spoke,

"Yeah, I know. Alas, I can't exactly do anything about that. Besides, you shouldn't always dive in head first towards things like that. Life or death battles are no joke, you know. You didn't even get the point I was trying to make."

He sounded sort of annoyed at Sayuri's determination. He was such a weirdo.

"Anyways, you two just need more experience. And now onto Rei." He said as those dead eyes looked right at me.

I maintained my usual smile as I replied,

"Yes sensei."

"I have only one note for you. And this might be the only note I'll ever give you." He said as he paused a bit. "Be less confident."

"Huh?"

"You are capable, smart and vigilant. And you know your own capabilities very well. Which is why you know very well that you're already one of the strongest genin in the leaf. You are confident in yourself, which is normally good. But if you're not careful then that overconfidence will get you killed."

I rolled my eyes hearing that. He thinks I don't know that? Of course, I know that.

I knew myself and I also know that this attitude of mine won't be fixed till I'm pushed to the limit in a battle. Till then I'm going to be the chill guy who's always overconfident.

Just five minutes after our evaluation by Reiga sensei, I sensed twelve strong chakra signatures coming straight towards us. I tried to identify if they had any particular smell, but found myself stumped.

All of them had cleaned thoroughly. Not like having a shower or anything. Rather more like they have bleached their whole bodies.

Weird.

I mentioned them about their presence and mentioned Reiga sensei about the bleach thing. He just shrugged off saying that shinobis of that village have some sort of OCD regarding cleanliness or something.

Even after his assurance, I decided to take some precautions just in case.

We went outside and were greeted by the twelve shinobis. Three jonins and nine chunins. A bit of an overkill in my opinion. But then again, the scaling of their strength was not even comparable to those of Konoha. This just showed how the big five nations had shinobis of a totally different level.

Reiga sensei greeted the group and the leader of the shinobis from the village hidden in hot water greeted us back. He was on the shorter side of the three jonins but much older, clearly in his mid-forties. He had a muscular body with defined muscles visible even through his uniform. He had a head full of hair and eyes of light blue color.

"Greetings, shinobis from the leaf village. My name is Tatsumi and I am currently in charge of this mission." 

"Thank you for making it so fast. We have already interrogated this group and we've got all the information regarding the bigger bandit group in your country. They call themselves, 'Valiant Brothers', a bit ironic considering what they do for a living. There are almost a total of seventy men still in the hideout."

"You might have the map of the hideout, but are you sure that they'll all be there? It'll be really bothersome for us if we need to dispatch teams again after our strike tonight."

"Yes, we have got information that tonight is a big night for the group. Their leader, lieutenant and all their subordinate will be there. They don't know what it'll be for but they are sure that every unit will be there."

Tatsumi seemed slightly hesitant after listening to Reiga sensei.

"Look I don't mean to doubt your capabilities. But.."

Before he could even finish, I felt a sense of bloodlust coming from Reiga sensei. Not too much, but just enough to rattle the chunins from the other village.

"Don't. Doubt. Us, We might not be in war right now but you should watch yourself while trying to insult shinobis from the hidden leaf. We said that we extracted the information, that means we did what we were requested." Reiga sensei said as his dead eyes looked much colder than before. "It's already afternoon. We'll be able to reach the hideout if we start now. I'd prefer it if my team and I can be on our merry way before the night ends."

The jonins from the hot water village were not happy seeing Reiga's attitude. The woman on the right side seemed to give him death glares at him. It seemed as if she was going to attack but was stopped by Tatsumi before she could do anything stupid. With a smile faker than a kid's imaginary friend, Tatsumi gave a smile that symbolized his compliance to Reiga's 'request'.

With that out of the way, we started towards the hideout. Three chunins were kept to keep watch of the bandit group while we were away. They'll transport them to the village in the morning.

Before I left with the others, I gave an excuse regarding Umbra needing something from the back and went behind the house. I created a shadow clone and told him to keep watch and engage only if it's absolutely necessary. I also instructed him to disperse if he had to give me any important information. The thing about the bleach was bugging me.

With the precaution taken care of, I started off with the group. Just as Reiga sensei had predicted, we reached the hideout at nightfall.

As we stealthily took positions, I closed my eyes and used all my sensory abilities. All at once, an overwhelming sense of blood entered my nose. My enhanced senses could identify at least 100 different chakra signatures. And surprisingly, the amount of chakra signatures was decreasing one by one.

Something weird was going on. But before I figured that out, I threw out my kunai right towards where I sensed the lookout. The kunai hit right at its mark, the head and I sensed the loss of another chakra signature.

It was my first kill, but I did not have time to lament how I felt about it as Umbra traveled through the night to get a better view of the hideout. Something was happening there. I signaled the group to halt as Umbra went forward.

Using hand signals, I conveyed my message to the group that something weird was going on. With my mental link with Umbra, he shared his sight with me.

And what I saw through his eyes made my blood run cold.

The underground chamber was painted in death.

The walls were streaked with dried gore, and the stench of rot was so thick it seemed to claw its way up my throat. Bodies mangled, butchered—lay piled in careless heaps like discarded meat. Some were slumped against the walls, their eyes wide open in frozen screams, lips torn, faces slack with terror. Others had been hacked apart, limbs severed crudely, bone and flesh exposed like meat on a butcher's slab.

There were children, their small frames twisted unnaturally, clutching each other in their final moments. A woman's body was splayed across a shattered table, her throat slit from ear to ear, her lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. One old man had been nailed to the wall with kunai through his wrists—his abdomen split open, and whatever had once been inside him was now missing.

The blood wasn't fresh, but it hadn't dried completely either. It had soaked into the ground, into the walls, forming a rust-colored paste beneath the corpses. Flies buzzed hungrily, and somewhere in the corner, something writhed beneath a sheet—a body, maybe, not quite dead yet.

There was no pattern, no mercy, no reason. Just slaughter. Systematic, cruel, senseless slaughter.

What the hell had happened here? Weren't they supposed to be bandits that didn't kill much? How are there so many dead bodies there?

Something very wrong was going on here. And I did not like it one bit. Especially when we were not even on the Land of Fire anymore.